Festive cheer, Yuletide joy, and let’s hope this isn’t the year when dread Nyarlathotep returns from the illimitable vasty dark wherein he dwelleth and devours all our tasty souls.

Santa’s update is scanty this year. Suffice to say that the latter half of 2013 has demonstrated just how slowly things move in the screen world. But with two big projects on the go and several others in the pipe, I’ve been busy at least! As ever, I’ll tell you more when I’m actually sure they’re getting done; in the meantime I shall labour in secret.

Just a quick note to let you know that I shall be shambling around WFC 2013 in Brighton from Thu 31st Oct to Sun 3rd Nov (though likely I’ll be hauling my newly cirrhotic carcass back home to London fairly early on Sunday). In among my hectic schedule of dossing about, eating and wandering hither and thither I have generously agreed to make time to appear on a panel:

FRI 4–5 pm

“The Next Generation” Not in Front of the Children: How Far Should You Go in Young Adult Fiction? (Oxford)

Sex, drugs, violence—open up a young adult book these days and there’s a good chance that you’ll find some—if not all—of these. Is this really what we should be teaching the younger generation, or is there an argument to be made that the earlier they are exposed to what were once considered adult themes then the better they will be able to deal with them?

Suffice to say I’m not likely to be arguing for much restraint, but feel free to throw your own tuppence worth into the comments section so I can nick your ideas!

Yes, I’ve been away for a long while, haven’t I? First it was Japan & China (and blessedly off the Internet for most of it) and then when I came back I began furiously working oooooon….

Can’t tell you.

Yeah, yeah, sorry. This is more a post to let you know I’m still alive than one with any real news. Basically I’ve been squirrelling away at some TV & film work, but due to the nature of that industry I can’t talk about it, because

a) I’m not supposed to, and

b) even the most sure-thing projects don’t make it to the screen sometimes.

But anyway, it’s all very cool. Trust me on this. Basically, after I finished The Ace of Skulls I decided to take a break from prose work for a while as I was feeling pretty burned out with book writing and fantasy/SF in general. Since then I’ve been much more occupied with doing work for the screen, and it’s been a lot of fun so far, but that industry moves very slowly so I’ll let you know when or if anything gets nailed down. As to books, I don’t have anything in the pipe at the moment, so enjoy Ace of Skulls, as it’ll be your last from me for a little while. In the meantime I’ll reconsider, regroup, plot and plan and decide what kind of book I want to write next.

Speaking of The Ace of Skulls, it’s all done and ready for its 19th September release. Check out the cover. Pretty!

People have been asking about the Broken Sky ebooks too. I’ve been looking at ways to get them done that won’t require a ton of work of my part, but long story short, the editing is taking more time than I have and it was destroying my soul. Maybe I should have just released them as they were, but having polished up half the series it’s hard to leave the rest undone, and even unpolished, self-publishing ebooks is a pain and if I’m going to do it I want to do it properly, not by releasing some badly formatted version with a crappy generic cover on. So, anyway, it’s unfortunately on hold for the moment and I’ll come back to it when I have time (or a personal assistant). Apologies to those who are waiting for it: I should have looked into it more thoroughly before I announced it in the first place.

Also, if you haven’t bought Silver yet, what are you waiting for, eh? You need something to tide you over till 19th Sept!

As ever, The Book Depository is your friend if you don’t live in the UK. Free postage worldwide. Probably cheaper than waiting for it to come out in your own country.

The eagle-eyed among you who’ve been reading the comments will also note that I’ve also been asked to be a Guest of Honour at the Steampunkfestivalen 2014 in Gävle, Sweden. Highly excited am I. The festival is still being planned so details as they emerge, but any excuse to engage my steam-powered Death-Suit and rampage among unsuspecting attendees firing bolts of electricity from my Tesla Cannon is frankly not to be missed.

What have I been up to, you ask? Oh, I’ve been working on some secret TV & movie projects, can’t tell you, very hush hush etc. God, screenwriting is fun though. A much needed break from books. Things are all going to come screeching to a halt at the end of the week however, cos I’m off to Japan & China for a month to hang out in mountain ryokans, primeval forests and sweaty heaving markets. Why? Just because. Seems ridiculous given my profession, but I haven’t had a holiday longer than a week in about five years. So now I am 😛

Keen followers of the comments section will already know that there is an audio version of Retribution Falls available to buy, narrated by Rupert Degas, who does a bang-up job even if I do say so myself. Here’s a sample so you can check it out!

The file is available from Audible either from their site or through Amazon here.

I understand The Ace Of Skulls‘ release date has come forward a month and will now be 19th September in the UK & Commonwealth. US I don’t know, that’s up to Titan Books.

Meantimes, I have been tapping away at some screenplay stuff, which I shall keep all very close to my chest as I’m still getting emails from kids who’ve found posts from 2003 about an Alaizabel movie and are all like ‘OMG can I be the star?’ The Internet never forgets. Dear God, what have we created?

The back-jacket summary is up on Amazon now, so I guess it’s out there. Consider yourself blurbed, people!

(NOTE – SPOILERS FOR PREVIOUS BOOKS IN THIS TEXT. DON’T LOOK IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE FIRST THREE)

Everyone still with me who wants to be? Good.

Just making sure…

All good things come to an end. And this is it: the last stand of the Ketty Jay and her intrepid crew.

They’ve been shot down, set up, double-crossed and ripped off. They’ve stolen priceless treasures, destroyed a ten-thousand-year-old Azryx city and sort-of-accidentally blew up the son of the Archduke. Now they’ve gone and started a civil war. This time, they’re really in trouble.

As Vardia descends into chaos, Captain Frey is doing his best to keep his crew out of it. He’s got his mind on other things, not least the fate of Trinica Dracken. But wars have a way of dragging people in, and sooner or later they’re going to have to pick a side. It’s a choice they’ll be staking their lives on.

Cities fall and daemons rise. Old secrets are uncovered and new threats revealed.

By which I mean I’ve actually delivered it now, all edited and everything. Almost exactly a year after I started plotting it. Man, this one took me a long time!

As ever, the feeling of delivery is actually kinda anticlimactic. I email it away to my editor, I look around the empty room a bit, I think ‘Hm, what shall I do now?’ Then I toddle off and tidy up a random corner of the flat or make some toast or bat at the toggle of a window blind for a while. I know it’ll be coming back to me in about a month with various corrections and changes. I hope they won’t be anything serious that can’t be fixed with a couple of sentences here and there, rather than the old finger-busting rewrites I used to have to do back in Braided Path days. I’ll probably take the rest of the week off (ie tomorrow) and next week I’ll start thinking about something new.

Not a book, though. Right now I feel like I never want to write another description of anything again, ever. I really badly need a break from prose work to freshen up the ole batteries or whatever. Probably I’ll get into doing some screenwriting for a bit. Comics. Video game work. Maybe a pamphlet of haiku. Some performance poetry. Copywriting for adverts. Possibly not those last three.

A world of possibilities has opened before me. I stare into the wide open spaces and think: ‘Ooo. What sort of story shall I tell next?’